Molting

It doesn't seem that long ago, but it was.  It's been almost a quarter century since we moved out of home to attend college.  Twenty-five years since I lived on the acreage with my parents, attending high school and...

Doing chicken chores. 

There were many mornings throughout my career as a stay at home child where I would have given anything not to feed the three hundred fowl that greedily waited one of us to feed them in the morning and night.  The worst time was during the winter when the water bowls would freeze solid and we'd make our way first to the basement to fill five gallon buckets with boiling water to melt the ice in the water pans.  As we carried these heavy buckets up a flight of stairs, we had to pry open the basement door and let the Old Man Winter's blast hit us in the face.  Maybe my recollections of life are slightly skewed now, but I don't ever remember having gloves and certainly there was never a scarf.  If it got that cold, we'd wrap a dish towel around our face and hurry out into the arctic chill.  Looking back, chicken chores doesn't seem so bad; but in the full biting fury of Jack Frost's breath, certainly I must have been miserable.

During the summer, though, chicken chores weren't so bad.  In fact, there were moments when the poultry seemed affable, friendly to us even if they mercilessly pecked our hands as we pushed them up in their roosts to thieve their eggs.  Strangely, I can still recall the disgusting feeling of walking barefoot across the yard and stepping in the chickens' previous dinner and sensing the odd moment when it squished through my toes. 

Anyway, summer was different.

One afternoon I walked into the old, rickety chicken house which leaned perceptibly to the north.  The pen outside was full of chickens, geese, ducks and a few stupid turkeys all picking up bits of scraps or wayward bugs to grind in their gizzards, but inside the chicken house, a few hens loitered chatting noisily in their coop or near the feed trough.  Against the sloping north wall, a chicken, or at least it had a chicken's head, sat miserably by an old wooden door.  The chicken had only splotches of feathers on its body; its wings sprouted a few pin feathers and quills.

"Dad," I said pulling on his sleeve.  "What's wrong with that chicken?  Is it dying?"

My dad noticed the poor chicken abandoned by her more beautiful, full feathered friends.  "Nope, she's molting."

"What does that mean?"  I had visions of the Wicked Witch of the West writhing under a bucketful of water shouting, "I'm molting!  I'm molting!"

Dad busied himself with filling the feed bucket from the converted cattle trough and unloading the contents in the feed pans.  "Chickens molt when they need a new set of feathers.  Kind of like you and I when we shed skin."

With horror, I looked down at my hand.  "You mean I'm going to lose my skin!"

He shook his head.  "No, you're not going to lose your skin.  The chickens shed their feathers, especially during the summer while it's hot and they can survive the heat, so that they have a fresh set for the coming winter.  It actually makes them stronger."

Now I shook my head.  "It might make them stronger, but they sure are uglier.  Are you sure they aren't going to die?"

"Guaranteed."

As I pondered this episode in my life, I reflected on how much it feels like the Church is molting right now.  In the midst of attacks from both believer and non-believer alike, whether sex abuse scandals, financial indiscretions or good old fashioned atheism, the church is shedding its skin.  What I mean by that is: the church is beginning to shed the image that it is just a social club looking out for its own due paying members.  It is starting to molt, to shed the old feathers that seemed only for the present inability to fly, so that it can grow new feathers reminding itself that the true purpose of Christianity is not simply to speak, but also to act. 

The scripture verse from Novo is especially pertinent to the molting church:  Philippians 2:13   for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.  For during this molt, it is a church turning back to God who is doing the work in us - In us! - so that we both will to fulfill his purpose but also be active in fulfilling it. 

Perhaps we've all seen a willing Christian, one who feels strongly about God's purpose in his or her life, willing to speak and tell others about who God is, but unwilling to act as if they really believe it.  This is the epitome of lukewarm Christianity.  And other times, we've seen Christians who are able to act, to volunteer and donate time in the cause of ministry, but were actually unwilling to do it for God's sake, only because they felt responsible to do it.  Once the action was done, they grumbled about all that they had to do.  Neither one of these Christian experiences is part of the Church molt.

But when we truly find a changed life, one that Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians 5:17  If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.  We find that will and action become almost synonymous in the new creation.  The molting has shed any lukewarm-ness and grumbling.

At Novo, I experienced some of the most amazing young people I have ever encountered, fully molted teenagers and young adults, who are on the verge of growing adult feathers.  And these young people are not chickens - they are like eaglets preparing to fly, to soar well beyond the boundaries of their imaginations.  Young people were praying and singing, starting conversations about the Bible and finishing with in depth questions about what they had been reading.  They were not worried about how their questions might fit into a traditional model of congregational life, only that the questions would actually be the wind that would allow them to fly.

Molting can be an ugly process and God knows the Church has needed to molt and it has been ugly at times, but as I scan the horizon of the future of Christianity, I am actually encouraged.  This is no ostrich in the sand moment, but an actual vision for how these young people are taking the name of God to the streets and helping real life people - not theoretical models of what a perfect 'Christian' seeker might be - to hear the name of Jesus and bend their knees.  Not just in reverence, but also in prayer.

I am encouraged by this molt.

The Table

This afternoon, I walked across the school campus, from D block which houses the year seven students, to the Information Hub.  They used to call these places 'libraries,' but the word 'library' brings to mind books, and cobwebs and fine smelling, inked pages; but the contemporary Information Hub, nee library, has relatively few books and the shelves that hold them are easily movable.  Often, when events are held at the school, they are shuffled out of the way on mobile carts into a back room leaving only computers lining the walls.  Information seems to be divorced from books now because it takes too long to find the context of the book - why would I actually read preceding chapters when I can just 'google' the phrase?  Books are antiques, right?

I struggle with 'Information Hub' even though it is an appropriately good name for the building.  I sometimes long for the days when we could walk into a public library, sit in silence and open a wonderfully old, odoriferous book which smells of past knowledge.

Ah, melancholic nostalgia... Can you smell it?

I entered through the automatic doors which swished open and I was greeted with the sounds of kids playing chess; a gaggle of girls were printing off reports on the communal Xerox machine in the back; a group of boys was huddled around a computer staring at a screen, giggling and pointing at what was probably the ninety-seventh consecutive youtube video that they had loaded.  The search probably started with something relatively academic - medieval trebuchets and devolved into Monster Trucks on Outback Roads - ten best fails.

Either way, I was not particularly keen to interrupt any of the groups; I was simply looking for a student I hadn't seen in a while.  After scanning the main library, I went back to the study room where four students were postured in various states of idleness.  It was the last period of the day and I'm sure that they had already packed their brains in for the afternoon, which, as I find more often than not, gives me a great opportunity to pick the brains of young people.

As what often occurs, the kids small talk until someone looks at someone else and the real question of the day arises.  Today it was:  Can a person be 'unbaptized?'  It took me by surprise as more often than not, they ask the question of relevance of baptism in contemporary secular culture, but the six who were there were like a spectrum of spirituality: One twelfth grade girl wanted to be unbaptized because she 'didn't believe in any of that stuff because there is too much bad in the world for there to be a God.' 

I smiled and scratched my head.  "When you were baptized?"

"When I was little," she said, pulling her own chair over to the table where I sat now.  "I wish my parents would have let me choose."

I leaned forward placing the weight of my body on my arms.  "So, can you wash the water off?  Does it work that way?"

She laughed which allowed another year twelve student to turn his chair around from his table and add his elbows to ours.

"I'm not really into religion that much either," he said holding up his hands as if surrendering, perhaps thinking that I was going to shoot him with my holy guns, "but I've got nothing against people that believe stuff.  Good for them."  He spoke as if faith was equated with an addled mind.

Another girl piped up.  "I never believed in God until I felt Jesus one night."  This surprised me a little bit because this young woman is relatively ambivalent about most things spiritual in religion and ethics class.  She must have seen my raised eyebrows.  "No, really, one night I was sitting at home, I was watching TV and then I felt Jesus.  A real sense of happiness." 

"What were you watching?" her classmate at the end of the table asked.

"I don't remember, but I know Jesus was there."  Interesting, I thought.  It seems like there is not so much spiritual ambivalence in our world as much as there is spiritual lethargy - a laziness that needs to be awakened.

"So," I asked the three now sharing my table, "What are you afraid of?"  This is a question I ask almost everyone hoping that they will dive into something deeper.  These students had just given me an opportunity, an opening, with which to insert a question that could perhaps take them to another level.  What I'm noticing most about people, young and old, is that those that claim spiritual ambivalence are the ones that are most allergic to spiritual change.  In other words, they don't want anything to do with God, because the odds are, an awakening in the spirit will lead to an alteration in life.

A sound from the corner - a new voice drawing closer to the table of four.  "I'm afraid of spiders."  This young man was not usually interested in joining in conversations, but he was willing to pull us up from the inevitable depths that most students, at times, want to swim in.  "Big ones.  I saw a youtube video the other day of a great big spider that got swept up and when it popped, all these baby spiders exploded from the eggs.  It was so cool."

The rest of my spiritual Breakfast Club table nodded in approval.  Talking about God requires taking a breath.  It's a practice that we are not used to.  The other boy chimed in.  "I'm not afraid of much - a snake or two, maybe failure..."  He trailed off.  Good.  Submerging again.

Now there were five of us at the table, leaning intently into a discussion that probably never should have taken place, but inadvertently we had stumbled over some of the deep questions of life.  Now, the young lady who had started it all off smiled over her chin in bridged hands.  "I'm not afraid of anything, really - not even of dying."  In my mind, I had already started the words Gotcha.  Those who claim no fear are usually the ones who want to talk about it most.  I was excited until the other young lady began to lead us through her Christian understanding of reincarnation. 

Yeah, it was different.  "See, I think when you die, you immediately are transferred to the belly of some pregnant lady, or someone about to be impregnated."  We didn't follow that line of discourse to its logical conclusion because the girl at the opposite end of the table was ready with her end of life understanding. 

"There's nothing.  You live and you die.  I want to be cremated and have my ashes dropped from a plane.  That way I could finally have the feeling of free fall."

"You mean," I started quickly before anyone else could begin to talk about the birds eating your ashes, or they would be swept up into the clouds where you would reside until the rain dropped you on some foreign soil, "that after you die, you'll be able to feel something."

"No," she said, "There's nothing.  You live, you die..."  It was almost as if it was a question rather than a statement.

The boy to my right took his elbow from the table and put his hand on his mobile phone which was illegally buzzing during school.  Ignoring the buzzing, he searched everyone at the table.  "All that I know is that I don't want worms eating me."

The other boy was all.  "I don't mind worms as long as the spiders stay away.  Nasty things.  Legs and teeth and sticky webs and stuff."  He fake shivered.  I wondered how many spiders that he had actually seen with teeth.

"Seriously," I said, "If there is nothing after this life, aren't you afraid?  What if..."  Just as I was about to finish the question that would take us from the shallows right to where only whales go, the school bell rang.  The students seemed to rouse themselves from almost a dream, look around at each other sitting at the table.  There is probably no other time that the four of them actually sit together.  They almost seemed embarrassed to be talking about these deep things: Meaningful things.  As they gathered their bags I lamely said, "We should continue this discussion next time, right?"

They already had their headphones in. 

Stupid bell.

What great kids they are.  Just like every other teenager I've ever known: strong willed, rebellious, inquisitive, diffident, unbreakable.  I wish discussions like that happened over tables everywhere in the world where people would allow questions to resound like restless gongs and the answers floated somewhere else in the harmonics of life; in the ethereal sphere which can only be grasped by extensive listening. 

Reminds me of another table that we all gather around, or should gather around.  Not the breakfast table, but the table set for us in the sanctuary.  As we all come forward from different places, turning at different times, coming from different understandings and difficult situations, we place our elbows next to each other and reach out for the ultimate answer from God - the final answer in Christ.  And, instead of turning people away from the table because of oddities of opinions, we welcome them to the discussion, but even more, welcome them to forgiveness of sins and salvation itself. 

That, my friends, is what the real table is for.

The Caves

Everybody has a testimony.  A story of how they got to where they are today.  When athletes talk about their paths to the major leagues, or professional basketball or football, they share their testimony from infancy to adulthood in their chosen profession - usually including a bump or two along the way and they often thank those who have supported them on the journey.

Paul relates his multiple times, but I really enjoy the way he shares it with the Galatians.  For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.  I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.  But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.  I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went to Arabia.  Later I returned to Damascus.

Then after three years...  (Galatians 1:13-18a)

The most amazing word in Paul's testimonial story is a little word I have over looked time and time again.  Its the word

'in'

"But when God, who set me apart from mother's womb and called me by his grace, was please to reveal his son in me... 

Almost always, when I think of testimonial transformations, the terminology used is 'the son was revealed to me,' that somewhere, outside of my normal existence someone told me about Jesus.  And, the implication is that Jesus remains on the outside, like a shimmering coat of chain mail, protecting the bearer from arrows, but Paul's description is that Christ was revealed in him, inside his innermost being; the change from persecutor to proselyte was an internal transformation so powerful that he needed three years just to figure it out. 

Is this real?  Did this really happen to me?  How can I tell anyone that I'm changed and that my attitude is different, no longer an adherent of salvation by law, but now by grace?  How can I face the Gentiles whose murders and imprisonments I've been supervising?

Paul's inner change is heroic and multifaceted and if any self-respecting adherent to The Way (name for early Christianity) came across him, they would probably throw him out on his ear.  He's no superhero.  His past is as checkered as a chess board.  His past precludes him from speaking or acting on behalf of us. 

Paul was not a superhero Christian, but then again, which of our biblical 'heroes' of the faith was?  Gideon?  Needed multiple different miracles in order to convince him to engage in his 'warrior-like' calling.  Joseph?  Arrogant, spoiled brat who alienated almost everyone who came into contact with him during his early years?  Esther?  Beautiful, but hesitant to speak.  Mary?  Just a young girl with a good singing voice.  David?  Murderer, braggart, adulterer, stripper.  (2 Sam. 6:20)?  How can these people be heroes?  Why doesn't God choose the strongest, the smartest, the most beautiful, the richest - to lead the people of God?

In my opinion, God is willing to use empty vessels.  Those who are afraid, those who are broken, those who are young (if you notice, many of the great biblical heroes are, in fact, young people), those who seem unfit for leadership - they are the ones God uses because he can fill them.  In their testimonies, they can speak of the ways that God has revealed himself in them - not just to them.  And when God has filled them with himself, they in turn are ready to be changed.

Changed to do what his good, perfect and pleasing will is (Romans 2:2)

Notice how Paul puts it to the Philippians, "Therefore (in light of everything that I've just written regarding have unity and the same attitude of servanthood as Christ) my dear friends as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose."  (Phil. 2:12,13)

Heroes are changed from the inside out: first their will is changed and then their action.  Will without action is a lazy, lukewarm faith.  Lots of hot air but little rising balloon.  Action without will leads to a constant stream of complaining which, in turn, actually turns people off from the Christ who is working inside of them.  God works in us to transform our will, personal and collective, to turn outwards to those who are in need.

Now, what can the church do about this?  How can the collective soul of the 21st century Way be transformed (and re-formed) to reflect God's inner workings?

We can take our time with those who are seeking.

In Tasmania, one of the first things that we did was to take a tour of some enormous cave systems in the Huon Valley.  Located just southwest of Hobart, the Hastings Caves park rangers give guided tours through the caverns.

We had an interesting tour guide.  With twenty-five other people, he lined us up outside the mouth of the cave and gave us the safety rundown.  Stay with the group, don't touch stuff, try not to hit your head.  The guide was in his fifties, probably a second job for him; a bit hippy-ish, I think, but as we walked through the caves, it became aware to us that he really did not like his job all that much.  He forced us to hurry past some of the stalactites that would have made tremendous photographs; instead of letting us visualize our own pictures in the shapes of the stalagmites (like seeing shapes in the clouds), he told us what we should see.  All the while, he kept pushing us forward so the next group could come in.  We wanted to go slower, to take in the surroundings, even to meet some of the other people on the journey, but Senor Tour Guide would have none of that.  By the end of the tour, I'm pretty sure at least two of the older folks were stumbling back up the stairs just to avoid his biting rejoinders about not being able to stay with the group.

I wanted the tour to change me; he wanted to tour to be over. 

It happens at church sometimes.  We want to get people through the 'membership' classes.  In four weeks, supposedly they can see enough, meet enough people, learn enough to be part of the group.  And, be hit up to volunteer for all the committees that are running short of members.  We open the scriptures, the doctrines and tell them what they ought to see, perhaps we don't allow them to imagine how their own experience plays into their faith journey.  Sometimes we, as congregations, hurry people through the in-filling of the Spirit, not out of maliciousness, but because we want to move the next group into the kingdom.

Perhaps it's time to slow down?

Our theme for the weekend for NOVO was superheroes and learning how God makes changes within us, so that we can make changes in the world outside us.  I'm looking forward to perhaps having a dialogue with whomever is reading along about the myths of Christian 'superheroes' and how we view God's continuing activity in us.